Keep minor criminals out of jail and raise funding, say Lib Dems

The Liberal Democrats have called for a fundamental shift in thinking on crime, saying minor criminals should be kept out of jail, with the money saved put into police funding.

Launching his party's proposals, Chris Huhne, the home affairs spokesman, accused the government of making too many people criminals by what he called "legislative diarrhoea". He said £1.2bn would be saved if the prison population was reduced from today's 84,000 to the pre-1997 levels.

The Lib Dems have already said they would redirect money saved from scrapping the ID cards scheme into extra policing but yesterday's announcement earmarked further possible funding. Huhne said it was the fear of being caught, and not the severity of punishment after conviction, which deterred people from committing crime.

He called prisons "colleges of crime" and said judges should hand down community sentences and probation for minor infringements. The Lib Dems released statistics showing the detection rate had fallen from 34% at the end of the 1980s to the current rate of about 28%, with 1% of crimes resulting in a conviction.

Huhne also called for a review of policing, with officers undergoing annual fitness tests, and with pay linked to performance not seniority, signalling an end to the 30-year "job for life".

The party would also scrap national targets and instead give locally elected police authorities power to set priorities.